Robert Garlitz and Rupert Loydell

from ABANDONED STORIES

BRUISE UPON BRUISE

Unconnected lives assembled by chance, tree's shadow
on the wall. Let the light shine
on the page, on the painted canvas.

Corners gather light, bounce it from behind
people busy at making. Absorbed in work
they ask the light to envelop their
days, keep them safe throughout each night.

Colours propel light into our smeary eyes;
we fling wide the doors to outside
where skateboarders zip the rails, turn up,
twist, flip, leap, smack and fall unfazed,
layering bruise upon bruise upon forgotten bruise.

You urge me to lighten up, suggest
we drive to the beach, take up
windsurfing, or give the kids cotton candy.

How unconnected our lives are, how full
of sugar and desperate thrills, dim light.

LUMINESCENT WARPAINT

Hate to ask again, and yes you're
going to kill me, but can you
send photos for this again? Each time
they arrive I end up painting over
them or a man in warpaint arrives
beating a drum, looking for cowboy sheiks
or crown prince presidents. Bankruptcy colours our
vision. No images can show us where
hate and fear, confusion, comes from. Secret
signs and silver sigils fuel our confusion
about how to interpret such a glare.

Haven looks like a trapezoidal room, bisected
by my shadow whenever the sun arrives.
Heaven looks like something else, a place
blues and greens swerve to avoid crashing,
red verticals make love to black horizontals
and purple brushmarks bask in luminescent afterglow.

SELF-CENSORSHIP

I'm dizzy, time to breathe. The shadow.
The horizon over the rail. Words all
a spin and hard to believe. Shadow

comes through every text I read, darkening
my vision, infecting me with the writer's
disease, the need to breathe out silence.

If you're singing along then beware:
happiness is at stake. Remember my letter?
I called you on it, your fear
of success, your dishonesty, my empty refusals
drove you further into print. Let go

of ambition and authorship, I wanna life
on a wide open mezzanine, overlooking a
room with a big open fire. Books burn

their authors beyond recognition. Proclaim yourself banal,
give up all hope of meaning, plunge
through the fonts of life into ink.